


Another month, another country

by Hyarrowen



Category: A Month in the Country (1987)
Genre: M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:36:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyarrowen/pseuds/Hyarrowen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of his month in the country, Tom Birkin finds that, altough he still cannot deal with the past, he can perhaps face the future - in company with a fellow-survivor of the Great War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another month, another country

**Author's Note:**

> Fandom: A Month in the Country, the novel by J L Carr, with special reference to the [**1987 film**](http://amitc.org/) starring Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh (both of them looking unbelievably young.)  
>  Pairing: Birkin/Moon  
> Rating: G  
> Word count: 1177  
> Genre: Romance with a touch of angst and h/c  
> Thanks to [](http://theficklepickle.livejournal.com/profile)[**theficklepickle**](http://theficklepickle.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

Time seemed to flow in a loop, the last afternoon Tom Birkin spent in Oxgodby, the last afternoon of summer.

As he left for the railway station, he looked back at the church where, for patient weeks, he had worked to uncover the Judgement mural, with its stern Saviour and his militant angels around him, the jaws of Hell waiting below, and the artist with his crescent-moon stigma falling, falling.

The church was bathed in golden light now, as all this summer had been golden, and with a sudden shock of recognition he thought he saw himself - an old man on the last day of his life - going back to see that astonishing painting.

He met the old man's eyes, and seemed to see a slight nod. 'Go your ways, young man, and make the most of your life. It flies fast enough.'

Tom knew that. He had seen life's transience in the trenches in France.

So he went on his way, eating the apple that was Alice Keach's gift, though he had refused the other gift she had offered that day in his bedroom in the church's belfry.

And he thought about the apple, and what it symbolised - forbidden fruit - as he climbed up onto the moorland on the way to the station. So when, in a steep little valley, he saw Moon ahead of him, encumbered like him with his possessions, he called out, 'James!'

He had never used Moon's first name before. The stocky figure halted; the fair head, under its ridiculous hat, turned.

'Tom.'

The problem with Moon had usually been to get him to shut up; though the raw wounds were easy enough for anyone to see who, like him, had fought in the trenches. Moon's ready smiles, his chirpy chatter, had dropped away all too often to reveal a hurt even greater than that which had caused Tom's stammer.

They'd never spoken of it, though somehow Moon had known that Tom was aware of his conviction for sodomy. Over a pint in the pub, Moon had told Tom about that six months in military prison, while the men of his company had fought and died in France, and how much it had hurt him. Moon had looked old, as old as all returning servicemen had felt.

But now it was Tom who spoke up. 'When are you off to the dig in Persia?'

'Late autumn,' said Moon. 'The dig doesn't start till then. I don't blame them at all; I wouldn't want to work through a Persian summer!'

'Do you – do you need somewhere to stay in London?'

'I’ll find somewhere. There's a man at the University who might put me up.'

'You can stay at my place, if you like.'

Moon looked at him. 'What will your wife – Vinnie, isn't it? - what will she think of that?'

'She wants to come back. I don't know that I want her back. There's been one man too many.'

'Ah.' Moon glanced at him, then hitched up his tent-bag again. Somewhere within the bundle, tin cups and plates clinked together. 'Thank-you, Tom. That's generous of you. I’ll be very glad to stay with you.'

They walked on down the valley, shoulder to shoulder.

*

Sharing a bed with a man was nothing new to Tom; often enough he'd been glad of any bed, no matter who its other occupant was. When his company had been crammed into this billet or that in France, and the night horrors had struck, there were times when he had embraced or been embraced as the need for comfort arose. But this was the first time a good friend had become a lover in earnest; the first time he had wanted to let that happen. _Timor mortis conturbat me._

They'd been in the poky flat for a week, and were beginning to get used to each other. One night, after he'd woken shouting, and been gentled back to calm, Moon said apologetically, 'It feels odd to be sleeping in a bed again, and not a hole in the ground.'

'Or in a tower.' Tom still missed his eyrie in the belfry.

'We're halfway between heaven and hell,' said Moon, with an attempt at humour.

'Like the artist.'

'Yes, poor chap.' Moon leaned out of the bed then, and rummaged in the ammunition box that held his private possessions. He pulled something out of it and handed it to Tom.

He looked at it in the light of the street-lamp shining through the thin curtains. A gold crescent moon, the moon of Islam, on a golden chain. They had found it when they had discovered the tomb of the mural artist; the evidence of his apostasy.

Tom looked back at him, feeling the weight of it in his hand. Moon had hidden other things he'd found at Oxgodby, things that should have been declared, and Tom had never said a word to their employers. Moon's whole dig there had been a sham. Hired to find one thing, he'd been looking for another, and the Saxon chapel had been his true prize, not the artist's tomb from which this pendant had been taken.

'Moon,' said James Moon, with a wry smile. 'I thought I was owed that, at least.'

Every man who had fought in the war was owed that at least.

It was hard to articulate what he meant, but Tom did his best. 'Yes. We're halfway between heaven and hell. Like him,' and he hefted the crescent moon in his hand; like poor Piers, who had been painted after his death, falling into the flames.

*

A month later, they were on their way to Basra, travelling through Palestine by train. Tom had been taken on by the dig's director as a finds-assistant. Now he looked out of the window at the dry hills of the Holy Land.

'Do you think Piers saw this place, too?' he asked.

'Well, why not?' said James, enthusiasm lighting up his eyes. 'This is where he was trying to get to, after all. Maybe he was captured here, and this was where he came by the pendant. Who knows, we might even find out more about him!'

Eddies in time. The artist, captured here, had gone home to Oxgodby where the two of them had uncovered his story, and now they had brought his pendant back here again.

And the old man, his older self, who had nodded at him going into Oxgodby church. What if Tom hadn't taken his advice to live his own life? Maybe, in another reality, there was a Tom Birkin who had taken Vinnie back, until the next man had caught her eye. Maybe still another Tom had gone through the woods to the rectory, and taken Alice away from her cold husband.

But this was the life he had now, with James Moon's shoulder warm against his own, here on this solid earth; like the artist, like the rest of striving humanity, they were halfway between heaven and hell.

END


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